Still Zoe ran after them, screaming at Jake, trying to make pace. For a moment she even drew abreast of the giant sledge, reaching as she ran, but the footboard seemed to climb away from her as she scrambled alongside, and the door to the carriage loomed above her outstretched fingers. The sledge seemed to swell in size until the footboard was well out of reach, or until she was impossibly small. She fell on her knees in the snow, crying after Jake.
Sadie, keeping pace with the sledge, stopped and stole a look back at her. Then the dog bulleted across the snow to follow her master, quickly catching up with the sledge before both it and the horse disappeared into the swirling darkness.
16
Zoe was numb with shock and cold. It had never occurred to her that Jake would abandon her. As she looked around her she could see nothing but a wide expanse of snow with the mountain slope on one side and dark pools of pine trees on the other. The town, and whatever comforts or resources it had previously offered, had gone. She understood that she was alone in this place, and pregnant.
She retreated to the flickering embers of the fire, but it only served to remind her how bone-numbingly cold she was. There were only a half-dozen or so logs remaining, the very last of the supply. She picked up one of the logs but it felt light and insubstantial in her hands, and when she put it onto the embers it flared and caught unnaturally. She huddled over the flame, feeling weak, drawing the duvet around her shoulders, shuddering with the pain of a cold that scraped crystal fingers across her beating heart.
She stared up at the stars in the winter sky. They had never in her life looked so multiple, so incalculable. The stars did not look down upon her. They seemed almost to turn away, with disinterested hard energy.
The log burning on the fire split and fell apart. She put another two on the flame and watched them burn rapidly. Time was racing, hunting for its correct velocity. The logs burned out like wads of paper. She put the very last of the wood on the fire, almost with a dedication to find out what would happen in this fleeting existence when they were all gone, when all resources were gone. She knew she could not survive this cold. She stroked her belly and watched the logs burn.
Death would come; a real death, oblivion. But she wondered if even that could take away the sting of loneliness she felt from Jake’s betrayal.
She sensed her mind closing down as the last log turned to embers. But then she saw them. Figures coming towards her out of the snow. Shapes, shadows, approaching her. They were roughly human, no more than silhouettes against the star-lit snow. Some of them had trumpets. One put his mouth to the trumpet and gave a long, low blast. Others had silver whistles and began to blow on them. More trumpets sounded. They were circling, moving in towards her.
So this was how she was to be taken. Perhaps they were demons coming for her. Amid the trumpets and the whistle-blowing she heard them shouting until they were all raising their voices. They were closing in.
These beings were led by the figures she had seen waiting outside the hotel. Men in black garb, their mouths partially wound in scarves. The smoking men. They were still smoking now. It was as if they had waited for the last embers of the last log to burn out before they began to throw down their cigarettes and approach her.
She had no strength to resist as they reached out for her, clawing at her. A sleepy paralysis took her over. If she was to be carried off to hell in this way she had no fight left. She thought only of Jake, and of the baby growing inside her.
17
I am a long way down. And yet I see it from above. White drifts of six-pointed crystals of tender, tender snow. The crystals interlock and make a wall. If I can get through the wall. If I can get through.
Then the crystals change and start to run past my eyes like complex machine code on a grey computer screen. No, it’s DNA. Strings of DNA running by, swimming by. No, it’s complex mathematical formulae, tiny numerals spinning before my eyes. Now it’s white cotton seed borne by a breeze, but in incredible slo-mo. It’s a tiny current, an eddy in Time. There: it’s snowflakes again.
Just snowflakes.
The snowflakes are in my ears, in my mouth, in my nose, like cocaine. I tried it once. You can keep it for your mother: it’s not a patch on where being in love can get you. The blood in my veins is frozen but it sings of love.
I can hear the sword of an angel scything through the air. Whop, whop, whop. Oh come. I can feel the vibration in the earth, the disturbance of air currents, the icy terror in the blade, the vestigial fire in my blood.
It’s very nice. I can let go.
I can fall into a place thronged with people. Their voices are a pleasing babble, and the air from their many mouths rises and cushions me as I fall gently among them. Many people come and go. I recognise some of them. There are two women standing by the desk. I somehow know them. I know their language. I know what they are talking about. A man walks by me and winks. Trying it on. I smell his cologne. Three uniformed women work behind a broad desk, busy dealing with people. One is young, with her hair scraped back and tied in a pretty ponytail. She presses a phone to her ear. Her older colleague has hair the colour of fire. She wears black-framed spectacles. She is processing a credit card. Another colleague talks to a man in a grey suit, struggling to hear what he has to say because the place is loud with excited chatter. People wait in a line by the desk, checking in, checking out.
I see the concierge, in his smart maroon and grey livery. He sees me and raises his eyebrows at me. He waves. I seem to recognise him. He waves at me again, beckoning me forwards across the busy lobby. But I can’t move. The concierge whispers something to another man before he picks up an envelope from his blond-wood desk. ‘Madam!’ he says to me. ‘Madam!’ He waves the envelope at me.
It’s not for me, I want to say.
I am afraid of the concierge. His bald head is illuminated by the strong lights overhead. There is a bloom of sweat on his shiny brow. He makes his way towards me through the people thronging the lobby. ‘Madam!’ he says again.
I pluck up courage and in a clear voice I say, ‘But it’s not for me.’
‘But madam,’ says the concierge, closing in on me with a smile, placing the envelope in my hand, ‘it is indeed for you, madam.’ He stands there, the sweet smile still upon his lips, as if waiting for me to open the envelope.
I am afraid to open it. But with trembling fingers I tear it open and I reach inside. But there is nothing. Or not exactly nothing, but what there is is nothing more than a card. It is a kind of Tarot card, but not like any Tarot card I know. It depicts a tree. The words at the bottom say ‘L’arbre de Vie’. Tree of life, I know. But it is not like any tree of life I have seen. It is more like a Christmas tree, decorated with curious objects and impossible fruit.
I look up at the concierge because I want to say, ‘What does this mean?’ But the concierge has gone. All of them, everyone, everything. All are gone.
18
Zoe opened her eyes to a white expanse. She felt the silk and honey of warmth in her veins. An odour of disinfectant. A brightly illuminated room. The white expanse was that of cotton sheets and a pillowcase.
There was a nurse looking at her. They blinked at each other. The nurse walked away quickly and returned within seconds with another woman, this one in a doctor’s white coat.
The woman bent over her. ‘Zoe?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘You know what happened?’ She spoke with a strong French accent.